


We’re Here

by An_Odd_Idea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, But only in the dream, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27367393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Odd_Idea/pseuds/An_Odd_Idea
Summary: Comfortember prompt 3: NightmaresPeter has nightmares about when Thanos stabbed Tony on Titan
Relationships: Tony Stark & Peter Parker
Comments: 33
Kudos: 107
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	We’re Here

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tumblr post about this and was inspired. For squirrelsan on tumblr

There was no denying it. Tony was officially a weirdo.

Peter consoled himself over this unfortunate fact with another handful of potato chips, squished against the car door as far away from Tony as he could get.

“What?” Tony asked, unwrapping the paper towel from around the freaking apple he’d fished out of his bag.

“Who brings _apples_ on a car trip?”

“I do.”

“That’s gross.”

“We left two hours ago, it’s not like it could have gone bad.” Tony spared him the barest of glances. “Don’t turn around like that or your seatbelt won’t work.”

“Okay maybe it’s not gross, but still, you’re missing out on all the good car snacks.” Struck by a thought, Peter grinned wickedly. “You know I always thought you’d be the _McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!_ kind of dad, but I bet you’re really the _We have food at home_ kind of dad.”

“I bought you those chips, and I can take them away,” said Tony without taking his eyes off the road. 

“Not these you can’t.” Peter shoveled a handful into his mouth with an air of defiance and promptly betrayed himself with a giggle.

Tony looked over at him again, just briefly, his eyes twinkling, and Peter hoped his own eyes did the same thing when he looked back at him. Then he wrinkled his nose at Tony’s backpack apple one more time, for principle’s sake. 

_Crunch_.

Peter flinched. 

“It’s an _apple_ , Parker.”

“Still weird.” His voice was too tight, and he tried to cover it with a laugh that just made it worse. He could tell, because Tony’s joking expression was instantly replaced by one of concern.

“You alright?”

“Yeah.” Peter swallowed his mouthful of chips with an effort. “Just had a thought.”

“Hate it when that happens.” Tony’s voice was marginally lighter again, but his face had gone hard like he was having a thought, too. He probably was. He set the apple back on the paper towel in his lap and reached stiffly for Peter’s knee.

“I’m okay,” said Peter, because the last thing he wanted to do was make Tony worry about him over something so random.

“You’re okay,” Tony echoed, giving his knee a light squeeze. He did that often, whenever the memories came up, to remind them both that Peter was still solid.

Peter nodded, because Tony didn’t know what it really was and now didn’t seem like a good time to explain it, and they rode in silence. After a while, Tony patted his leg and muttered something about starving and apples going brown, and Peter scooted as far away against the door as he could get. His throat felt slimy. 

_Crunch_ went the apple as Tony bit into it like it was the source of both their problems, and it didn’t really sound so much like... like _that_ , but now that he’d heard it once Peter couldn’t un-hear it. He folded the top of his half-empty chip bag and turned up the radio.

  
It was always the same.

Tony was winning—well, maybe not winning, but certainly giving Thanos a run for his money—until it all went wrong. The sword formed itself out of his depleting armor. (Iron Man fighting with a sword; Peter would never have imagined it.) The two figures outlined against the orange sky struggled together, one towering over the other.

Peter could get to them if he moved fast enough. He could get to Tony and help him and stop it from happening, because he knew what was going to happen, but he couldn’t move. Tony might have been miles away, or he might have been almost close enough to touch, and it didn’t matter because Peter couldn’t move. He could only watch, only _listen_ , as the blade was turned against its owner, and that _sound_ was there again, sharp and brutal, and he was too late.

Tony stumbled backward—he didn’t have a choice, speared through like he was, letting out unspeakable little sounds of pain, and Peter still couldn’t move to help him. Light glinted on the tip of the blade coming out of his back as Thanos forced him to his knees. He was far too small, helpless to even move away (because he was _stuck_ on the sword in him, dear God) and everything was wrong.

Everything in Peter wanted to run to him  
and protect him, but it was like his own body didn’t belong to him anymore. He watched Thanos yank the sword out again with a sound just as sickening as the first, and he still couldn’t move.

Tony was gasping, each breath more painful than the last. He sounded bad, he sounded like he was dying, and only then did Peter break free from whatever had been holding him in place. 

He could still get there if he moved fast enough. What he would be able to do when he got there was unclear, but Tony was bleeding and he was in pain and he sounded _scared_ , and Peter had to do something. He pushed himself as fast as he could, scrambling up the last small rise of ground that separated them. He hated to let Tony out of his sight even for a second, but he was almost there, and then there had to be something he could do.

He topped the rise. Tony lay in a pool of blood, eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky.

  
Peter’s eyes snapped open to darkness. He sucked in a breath, about to scream, and stopped himself at the last second. He was lying down, in a bed, not standing on Titan with Tony in front of him on the ground. He gasped again, and again, trying and failing to calm his racing heart.

“Pete?”

Usually this was the part when Peter wondered how much of the dream had been real, but this time the question was thankfully answered for him. Tony sat against the headboard of the other bed in their hotel room, his face illuminated by the glow of his phone. 

Boston, Peter’s mind supplied for him. They were in Boston.

“You awake?” Tony asked softly.

“Yeah.” He kept his voice steady, but there was no denying that it was strained.

Tony didn’t say more, and Peter was grateful. He sank back into his pillow with a shaky sigh. He could still hear it, still see Tony stuck on the blade and bleeding out on the ground.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, to distract himself.

“Reading up on some of the conference speakers. What about you?”

“Nothing. Can I sit with you?”

“Sure.”

Peter climbed out of his bed, only becoming aware that he was in fact shaking slightly when he tried to move, and crept to Tony’s. He settled against the headboard as well, close enough for their arms to touch. Tony’s arm felt solid against his, and Peter melted a bit against him.

“Bad dreams?”

“Yeah.”

Tony raised his arm slightly as an invitation, and Peter was quick to tuck himself under it. That didn’t feel like enough, and he turned sideways to wrap his arm across Tony’s middle too.

They wouldn’t have done this before. Actually, Peter amended, Tony was nice enough that they might have if he’d needed it; they just didn’t have nightmares of each other dying before. He rested his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. 

“We’re alright.” Tony didn’t usually say much at times like this, probably because there wasn’t much to say. Moments like these had become a sad fact of life. “We’re right here.”

Peter nodded. They almost never discussed the content of their dreams, but he knew what Tony’s were about. He had those too sometimes, and they were the only ones Tony knew about of his. Something always seemed to stop him from talking about the one he’d just had.

Tony sighed quietly and started to run his fingers through Peter’s hair. He was warm and solid and _there_ , and Peter felt suddenly like crying. He didn’t, but his breath hitched slightly, and he squished his face a little more firmly into Tony’s shoulder.

“Aw, kid.” Tony gathered him closer into a tight hug. “You’re safe, alright? He’s gone and he’s not coming back, I’ll make sure.”

Peter felt... small. He wasn’t really that small compared to Tony, but the hug made it seem like he was, in a good way. If he held still, he could feel Tony’s heart beating, and that was also nice. They were lucky Thanos had missed that. He tightened his arm across Tony’s middle.

“Must’ve been a bad one,” said Tony sympathetically, as if there were good nightmares, too. 

There were definitely less-bad ones, Peter supposed. He nodded again.

“Want to tell me about it?”

It might be nice, just to have it known. Peter felt so small that he wasn’t sure his voice would be loud enough for Tony to hear, but it was at least a safe kind of small. He anchored his fingers in Tony’s shirt.

“Only if it helps,” Tony added. “You don’t have to.”

It could help. “You know on Titan?” he began in the tiniest voice.

Tony may not have been aware, but Peter felt him tense ever so slightly. “Yeah?” he said, barely above a whisper.

“And you, um.” Peter pulled himself impossibly closer and held on tight. “You got stabbed?”

“Yeah?”

“I kinda dream about that sometimes.”

Tony was quiet, tense under Peter’s arm. Peter held perfectly still, almost holding his breath waiting for a response.

Finally Tony let out a long sigh and went back to running his fingers slowly through Peter’s hair. Definitely more plain tired than relaxed, Peter closed his eyes and let himself go almost limp against Tony’s side.

“Oh kid,” Tony murmured, his fingers never leaving Peter’s hair. “I didn’t think... I should have thought.”

“It’s okay.” Peter snuggled up to him, determined that Tony wouldn’t feel guilty for this, because you just weren’t supposed to feel guilty for getting stabbed. Tony had said that himself after Peter had been ‘lightly’ stabbed on patrol, before anything with Thanos had happened. “I just get freaked out, you know, since you almost died and stuff. And it, um, it really looked like you would, and whenever I dream about it you always do and I can’t _do_ anything, and it’s stupid because like, you’re _fine_ , but I keep having these dreams and they won’t go away.”

“I know.” Tony guided Peter’s head against his chest and held it there. “I wouldn’t call it stupid.”

Peter shrugged.

“I got you back, but I still have those dreams about you. Are they stupid?”

“Well you actually saw that.”

“You actually saw what happened to me, too.”

“I guess. Except you were okay. Mostly okay, right after. I wasn’t.” Peter shivered inwardly. That part was still too weird to think about most of the time, that he’d been dead.

His head was moved slightly when Tony sighed again. “I have nightmares about what happened, you know that. But I also have them where Bruce’s snap didn’t work, or where everyone came back but you.” He nudged Peter’s head with his chin. “Even though that never happened and you’re fine.”

“Sorry.”

“What’re we apologizing for?”

“Those just sound really bad.”

“You’re missing my point,” said Tony, with a hint of fond annoyance. “Point is, it’s normal. I get freaked out about what really happened, and what only _could_ have happened, too. It makes sense.”

“I guess.” Peter just felt worn out more than anything else at the moment. “I wish it would stop.”

“Me too, buddy. There’s help for that, but it just takes a while.”

“Yeah.”

“For now, you listen to me.” Tony held Peter’s head a little tighter against his chest so his ear was pressed against him, and his words vibrated over the reassuring heartbeat. “I’m right here. I’m just fine, and I’m not going anywhere, alright?”

Peter nodded, suddenly trying not to cry again.

“We’re here, kid.” Tony might have kissed the top of his hair, or he might have just poked it with his nose.

“We’re here,” Peter echoed. _Here_ was a nice place to be.

“We’re both here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, or come visit me on tumblr @an-odd-idea
> 
> Please do not print or reproduce this work outside this site


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